Way back in 1993, Michael Howard asserted that ‘Prison works’. Although we still live with the consequences of this claim, the evidence for it has become ever more disputed and, in Scotland at least, it no longer represents an orthodox position.

So can we now ask some better questions? For whom might prisons work, and to what ends? How different would they need to be from the prisons we have now in order to ‘work’ as we might want?

Richard Sparks is Professor of Criminology at the University of Edinburgh and a Co-Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research.
His published works include “Prisons and the Problem of Order” (with W, Hay and A. E. Bottoms, 1996) and “Public Criminology?” (with I. Loader, 2010). In 2010, he was involved in a research team evaluating the role of the arts in Scottish prisons.

Can Prison Work? [ 51:10 | 0.01 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download